The present invention relates to slides useful in moving large furniture, major household appliances, file cabinets, entertainment consoles, or the like on a variety of floor coverings such as vinyl, carpet or wood.
It is well known in the art to have slidable casters for moving furniture. For example, Schacht, U.S. Pat. No. 1,861,095, teaches a caster cup having a slidable shell filled with a resilient body material which is configured with various recesses and friction enhancement schemes to prevent a furniture leg from moving within the caster cup. Also, Born, U.S. Pat. No. 3,326,508, teaches a slide with a flat but flexible sliding shoe supporting a body permanently affixed to the shoe upper surface at its center. The Born slide body, either of rigid or resilient material, has a pressure-sensitive material to permanently affix the slide to furniture. The slide shoe, which concentrates furniture weight at its center, deforms to a dish shape under weight of the furniture at its center to lift the perimeter of the shoe above a floor surface to reduce edge grasping. The shoe may also be dished initially to accentuate the effect.
The present invention provides a reconfigurable slide, not previously known, that is reusable in moving furniture which is large relative to a furniture leg. It uses a round slide cup with a rigid, flat floor contact surface to distribute furniture weight over its large floor contact surface and rounded corners to avoid edge grasping. A replaceable insert is used in the slide cup for adapting the slide for various applications. It is also not known to have an insert used in combination with the slide cup which, first, has a bottom surface that matches the contour of the cup inner surface to prevent sliding without the use of adhesives and, second, which also has a uniformly flat top surface either of resilient material to conform to virtually any furniture leg or of rigid material useful for moving furniture not having a leg.